“Anni di piombo” (“The Lead Years”) has little nostalgic resonance in the US. Unlike “Mai ‘68”, which instantly evokes exhilarating scenes of French student occupations, demonstrations, police brutality, wildcat strikes, riots, and barricades. (And perhaps some fervent threesomes if you made it through Bertolucci’s The Dreamers.) While Mai ‘68 appears retrospectively as both the unfulfilled apex and mythic nativity for so many –isms of the late twentieth-century, the tumultuous anni di pombo are largely overlooked despite the radical political and cultural activity maintained by the Italians for a decade after similar movements had withered in France and the United States. [click to continue…]

What is recto|verso ?

recto|verso is a place where we — the staff of F.A. Bernett Books — showcase some of the more spectacular, interesting and puzzling items we come across. If you see something you’d like to know more about, please visit our trade website (www.fabernett.com) or contact us by
e-mail. Everything you see on the site is for sale (if it hasn’t already sold since you discovered the post). For visitors unfamiliar with us, there’s a bit more about the company’s history here.